


but heavy is the cost

by Hinterlands



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Mild Sexual Content, and fareeha is not good at convincing her to, angela is not good at confronting her problems, guilt complexes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 08:14:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7969192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinterlands/pseuds/Hinterlands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angela has only ever been a thoroughly unobtrusive bedmate; her slumber is self-contained, and she keeps her limbs tucked close, her body half-curved, the ridge of her spine only just brushing the boundary-line splitting the bed between them, only breached by invitation—and Fareeha, of course, invariably, unfailingly, will elect to extend that invitation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but heavy is the cost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agenthill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agenthill/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Touch (I'm All Shook Up)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7951597) by [agenthill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agenthill/pseuds/agenthill). 



Angela has only ever been a thoroughly unobtrusive bedmate; her slumber is self-contained, and she keeps her limbs tucked close, her body half-curved, the ridge of her spine only just brushing the boundary-line splitting the bed between them, only breached by invitation—and Fareeha, of course, invariably, unfailingly, will elect to extend that invitation. An arm slid around Angela’s waist, drawing her into the lean, hard curve of her body, slotting them together, Fareeha’s breasts pressed to her back, the knobs of Angela’s vertebrae against the wall of her abdomen, a feedback loop of body heat between them. Even then, Angela slumbers in silence, still as stone, not even the steady drumming of her pulse to break the bubble of calm coalescing around them.

Lately, however, this is not the case; Angela’s shoulders twitch in her sleep—her hands flex, her legs stir; the motions are stilted, true, and contained, and Fareeha feels little more than a nudge (though, conditioned as she is to sleep lightly, stay coiled and primed for sudden motion, that is enough to wake her) when she feels anything at all, but it is nonetheless a deviation, and, routine and precise as Angela is, worry settles between the slats of her ribs, gnaws at her with yellowed incisors.

(At times, there are sounds that are—while not exactly pitiful, signal pain nonetheless, a kind of helplessness; a sharp intake of breath before the rhythm returns, slow and syrupy, a throaty whimper, a hoarse groan, and Fareeha must seize the impulse to take her by the shoulder and guide her back to consciousness before it seizes her in turn; instead, she lies awake, one arm tucked over Angela’s waist, splayed over her belly, her palm warm and rough with callus, and peers into the formless shadows, turning restless thoughts over in her mind.)

She fully intends to pursue the issue when dawn begins to bard the sky in baby pinks and striations of orange, but each time, the words fizzle and die on the back of her tongue when Angela twists to face her, eyes still heavy-lidded, and reaches out to cup her cheek, as if to reassure herself that Fareeha is still present, still breathing, still corporeal. A kiss follows it—always a kiss, even if their breaths are still morning-sour, their lips dry and rough. One follows another, and Fareeha can feel herself being led, down and down, feel the thought slipping, feel the worry dissipate, exhaled on a heated breath—but as the corner of Angela’s mouth curves into a wan smile, she is all too pleased to forget.

(Persistence means that Angela will begin to move against her thigh, flushed and humming beneath her breath, the motions rhythmic and languid, until Fareeha’s traitorous tongue stutters to a halt and her hands slide down to curve over the jut of Angela’s hips and one of Angela’s comes snaking up to clutch her shoulder, steady her as they rock against one another, Angela’s murmur of _Fareeha, Fareeha_ high and breathy, leaving wet impressions against her skin. Kissing open-mouthed, now, despite the messy risk of teeth clashing, and the forgetting is all the sweeter when Angela’s body seizes, a high, keening sound vented between her teeth, her face suffused with heat.

It also comes to pass that, afterwards, Fareeha lies alone, slick with sweat, dazed with pleasure, among the mussed and messy sheets, Angela having slipped out with a last kiss and a murmured endearment before Fareeha could even truly register the loss; that, of course, is a vexation once she finally drifts back down to Earth, but—she has to admit, if grudgingly—a pleasant one.)

Nonetheless, afterwards, the moment is gone, opportunity long fled with it; outside of bed, the issue is a clunky, awkward thing that sits too heavy behind the teeth, seems approachable only when they, too, are vulnerable, naked, open, fresh from sleep. And Angela’s study—her perpetually-overflowing desk with stacks of reports both ingoing and out, the single padded chair occupying space behind it, the assortment of mementos littering it—is a sacred space that, even after so long, Fareeha does not necessarily feel comfortable inviting herself into, even without carrying with her this….heaviness.

This, however, cannot stand for long; Angela seems to be worsening even in daylight hours, her gaze faraway and pensive during their morning meal as she stares into the depths of her coffee mug, as if plumbing it for answers—likewise, she does not always respond to Fareeha’s words, snapping to a hazy sort of attention a moment too late, always, before affecting a faint smile and asking her to repeat herself. Twice, Fareeha has peered past the doorway to the study to find her sitting motionless, cheek pillowed against the surface of her desk, staring at nothing, her expression blank, her eyes—while not glassy, retaining a certain vagueness.

(Fareeha has the sense that this descent into stillness is a rare indulgence, and, to a point, she understands; her mother, determined as she might be, had occasionally been seized by these fits of melancholy—nearly immobilized by them—and Fareeha herself has suffered the same, but largely had no witnesses to it, the slog, the haze, the staid dullness of life within these periods. The facade she (and her mother before her, in turn) constructed was strong, but, at times, not strong enough.)

* * *

 

So, all leading up to this, a single moment of courage—her hand against the smooth, dark wood of the door, announcing herself with a clearing of the throat, a soft-mouthed murmur of _Angela?_  
This appears to be one of her better days—Angela is upright and busily stacking thick sheafs of paper together, ink smeared on her fingers, in a faded arc across one cheek. The sight gives Fareeha pause, a slow, private smile stealing across her face. She glances up, seems to startle, head cocking slightly. “Oh, Fareeha! Come in.”

“If this is a bad time…” Her smile fades; that it will _never_ be a good time for this does not escape her, and the thought is sobering.

“No, no. I was only—here, come in.” Angela beckons her forward, a quick, fluid motion, and is still smiling pleasantly just until Fareeha runs a hand over the back of her own neck and says, her voice soft, “I think that we need to discuss what’s been happening.”

There—panic flaring in her eyes, if only fleeting; Fareeha has plainly caught her off-balance, with no opportunity to gain the upper hand, kiss her into blissful distraction, feign normalcy, and in the end her shoulders slump, if only fractionally, her voice gone soft and leaden. “Yes,” she says, at last, after one more considering glance at the doorway, peering around Fareeha’s body. “I suppose that we should.”

Nowhere to sit but Angela’s place, so Fareeha remains standing—no tension in her shoulders, no air of disapproval about her, no threat, no fight; Angela rearranges herself, folds her hands atop the desk, and is silent until Fareeha prompts her, gently; “The nightmares?”

A moment’s pause; “Jack,” Angela says. “Gabriel.” Her throat bobs, and, yet, nothing further issues forth, gathering her thoughts, putting them in order.

(The mere mention of their names sets Fareeha’s teeth on edge—not _Morrison and Reyes_ but _Jack and Gabriel,_ the men behind the masks, the gleaming gun-barrels and chestful of medals, the winning smile, the slow roil of corruption beneath the surface of Jack's leadership, almost unseen. An issue of the past, of course, of a lifetime ago.)

“In the months leading up to…” Her voice seems to fail her. To the accident that was not an accident, that was orchestrated, that was meant to transform base to graveyard, that sundered too many lives. “…In the months leading up to it, I had thought that they had been behaving…oddly. But I thought nothing of it—that the stresses of command were wearing on Jack, and Gabriel…I had little reason to suspect that anything was wrong, he was--behaving like himself, for the most part, as I always knew him, joking, smiling, but surely there was _some_ sign.” A pause; her voice wavers. “I keep going back over those moments in my head—the little things, the way they spoke to one another, the glances, and I wonder…I wonder if I had looked closer, had _cared_ to look closer, that it could have been prevented. That—all of it could have been prevented.”

So; it all narrows down to the cold weight of guilt in the core of her, a carefully-wrapped kernel of it carried through the years, past deaths undone and Overwatch’s reformation; _that_ is something Fareeha can understand.

(She has felt betrayal on such a scale, and keenly, and committed it herself; men pinned as mere casualties, numbers racking up behind her eyes, focusing only on the dispensation of justice, on the mission’s completion. _None of our lives are more important,_ whispers some soft, acidic voice lodged at the back of her skull, and she forces herself to blink, to breathe deeply. She had learned quickly, after that, but at great cost. At great cost.)

“You think that you’re responsible,” Fareeha answers; it is, simultaneously, a question, and not. “For all of it. The dissolution—Morrison and Reyes.”

“For all of it, no,” Angela says, a flickerfast smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “But it would not be implausible for me to claim responsibility for a good deal. I know that it was Reinhardt who kept the old Overwatch together…but I could have stepped in after him. I chose to focus on my own work, and the entire thing crumbled.”

“One person can’t bear the burden of all of it,” Fareeha says, as gently as she can manage. “The ship was sinking even before that. You couldn’t have known.”

“I could have,” Angela replies, her voice brittle with conviction. “I could have, but I chose blindness willingly. Towards Jack and Gabriel—towards everything. And—what came after.”

Fareeha feels her throat seize; _that_ is not something she has ever wished to discuss, wished to _acknowledge,_ to excavate from where it was consigned, and her tongue feels thick in her mouth as Angela bows her head towards the desk, mouth set in a pinched, hard line, as if attempting to gather herself.

(Fareeha remembers the funeral, if nothing else, in dark, watery smears of color, tens of reverberating voices compounding and distilled to nothing but a faint mosquito-whine; the caskets set at the head of the room were closed with a sort of damning finality for reasons that varied from mourner to mourner— _the bodies were horribly mutilated,_ said one; _the bodies were never recovered from the wreckage,_ said another. Fareeha’s stomach cramps, because she knows the latter to be only a half-truth, and that the revelation has only come recently—here, now, in adulthood, rather than the impressionable bounds of youth—only compounds the ache.)

“It was not your fault,” Fareeha says, and she is momentarily surprised that her voice is not as brittle as she feels. “Whether or not you believe that is your own affair, but I will tell you so whenever you ask.” Two short strides and she’s crossed the room, one hand planted firmly on Angela’s desk, and she makes an effort to soften her voice as she reaches out to lay the other atop Angela’s, her palm warm, slightly damp. She feels rather than sees Angela shift her own hand to grip hers, fingers laced together, an anchor.

“You don’t need to hide from me,” Fareeha tells her, with aching gentleness, almost off the edge of hearing. “This will only work— _can_ only work—if we are honest with one another and ourselves.”

“I know,” Angela says, and she sounds so deeply tired that Fareeha’s heart lurches, a quick, jerky flutter of movement in the cavity of her chest. And—to Fareeha’s surprise, she rises, circles the desk to press herself into Fareeha, hands still joined, her cheek resting against the ridge of one sure shoulder. Now this—wonder of wonders. Contact sought, touch and comfort.

“Talk to me,” Fareeha says, after a moment, slowly, considering. “At your own pace. When you choose. But please,” she continues, stresses the syllables, makes them stretch. “Talk to me. It’s easier to share a burden between two.”

A momentary lapse into silence as Angela raises her head to meet her gaze, the slightest of smiles playing at her lips—though her expression is more of defeat than everything, a touch watery. “You realize,” she replies, “That this also applies to you?”

That startles a chuckle out of her; Fareeha tilts her head one way, the other, considering, before sliding her free arm around Angela’s waist, nodding slightly. “All right,” she says, straightening. “All right.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, a bit of background: this fic was written with the always-wonderful agenthill (and their Plighted Hands verse, which you should absolutely drop everything to read immediately) in mind, and was originally intended to be part of said series--unfortunately, I took a few too many artistic liberties with this one, and as such there are a few irreconcilable inconsistencies that have necessitated that this stand on its own. Still, it's very heavily inspired by it, and as such you can probably treat this as sort of a companion piece. 
> 
> Other notes: I see Angela as a woman who is absolutely, one hundred percent, plagued by guilt of quite a few assorted varieties--survivor's guilt, feeling responsibility for things that are assuredly not her fault, etc., but I also see her as a woman who rejects the notion of dealing with any issue that she can't approach clinically, and as such, she deals with some pretty heavy, unresolved stuff. Fareeha understands this entirely, but that doesn't mean she isn't entirely exasperated by it.
> 
> (Title is from "Personal" by Stars.)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed! Please feel free to leave me prompts or suggestions for future fics in the comments--and thank you for reading.


End file.
